Limpieza de Sangre
by Mourning Ophelia
Summary: Sirius Black remembers the day he met James Potter with a laugh and a cringe. Oneshot


Title: Limpieza de Sangre

By Mourning Ophelia

Disclaimer: Characters belong to JKR and all those other lucky bastards. ;)

Author's Note: This is my first time ever writing in the HP fandom, but the idea of the story came to me while I was trying to study for my Colonial Latin American final. I apologize for any OOC-ness and general insanity, and I would love to hear your opinions on it. :)

I.

Sirius Black remembers the day he met James Potter with a laugh and a cringe. It is a happy memory, but even now he can still feel the ghost pain of his mother's fingernails digging into the skin of his cheeks as she turned his head in the direction of a small, smiling family. The son was staring at the Hogwarts Express with the same mixture of trepidation and excitement he felt.

"Those are filthy blood traitors, Sirius," she murmured, and Sirius squirmed with the sheer foulness of it. His mother smelled like mold and stale bread, which was appropriate as he liked her about as much as the green fuzz that grew in the basement and the crusts she fed to her house elves.

Sirius knew better than to argue, and tried to quell the silent rage that bloomed in his chest at her words.

A decade of prejudice and antiquated ideals had passed in one ear and out the other. How could someone be bad for liking everyone else? For wanting to get along? The family looked happy, happier than Sirius had ever been in his life, he was sure.

As if sensing his thoughts, his mother continued, "Whatever it is you have in your stupid little head that makes you think they are worthy anything had better be left behind before you get on that train. You will not shame the House of Black, Sirius. You will spend time with your cousins, and you will behave yourself in a manner that is fit for a pureblood."

Sirius nodded mutely, straining to pull out of her grip.

"Do you remember what your father told you before you left?" she asked, dark eyes narrowing severely. Every horrible wrinkle in her face scrunched toward her fake smile.

Sirius nodded again. The platform was emptying out around him, and he suddenly knew what his mother was trying to do.

"What did he tell you, Sirius?" she said. "I want to hear you repeat it, so I know for sure that you understood."

"Please don't--," he began desperately, wanting to get away--anywhere away--from this woman, her words, his past.

"Blood traitors are worse that Mudbloods," he whispered tonelessly, not wanting the remaining children streaming by to hear it. "Blood traitors betray themselves, their families, and their kind."

"And?"

Sirius shook his head. This was the worst part.

"And _what_, Sirius?"

He realized then that there was a real chance she would not let him get on the train. Opening his mouth, the words coming up from his heart like bile, Sirius closed his eyes.

But Sirius remembers in that same moment his cousin was there to save him.

"Sirius!" Andromeda's eyes went straight to her aunt's hand, recognizing all too well what was happening. "Sorry _Auntie_," the word sounding forced as always, "but if we don't leave now we'll miss the train."

Sirius received no hugs, no kisses, no more words. Just a hard push and a look--_you are a Black, you will act like one, you will achieve like one, and you will not ruin this_.

Andromeda, as was her way, shouldered his owl cage and his burdens, bringing his trunk up behind her with a flick of her wand. He looked back only once, making sure his mother was not amongst the crowd of tearful, waving parents.

"I was afraid she'd do something like this to you," Andromeda said, a sigh following. "But just think, you're on your own now!"

"Except for Bella and all the other lousy gits she told me to sit with," Sirius mumbled, eyes down.

"Well you can come sit with this lousy git in the prefect compartment if you get bored or lonely, yeah?"

"Yeah," he conceded, "All right, maybe."

She turned around and smiled.

"You are free, Sirius," he remembers Andromeda saying, and the train's engine seemed to reaffirm this. "This is your chance."

He snorted in disbelief, wanting to point out that there was no such thing as freedom when you were a Black. He knew exactly what he was supposed to do.

But then she winked at him as if knowing the secrets to his destiny, and suddenly he felt as though maybe it _would_ be all right to believe her. Maybe he could.

So Sirius wandered the corridor of the train, opening and closing compartment doors even on familiar faces. When he at last found the dark-haired boy with wire-rim glasses he was already sitting across from another sandy-haired boy with a scar across his brow and a fuming red-haired girl, whose nose was buried so deeply in a new copy of _Hogwarts, A History_ it was nearly to the paper.

Sirius went straight for him, so quickly the boy nearly dropped his entire box of Bertie Bott's Beans. He remembers wondering whether or not his reputation had preceded him.

"My name is Sirius Black," he said, holding out his hand, "and we are going to be best friends."

All eyes were suddenly on him and his empty, hanging hand.

The boy blinked, coming out of a surprised stupor. He seemed to consider Sirius for a moment before looking down to the rainbow assortment of candy in his palm. Then, he looked up.

"Well I'm James Potter." He grinned. "And if you're going to be my best friend, you're going to have to eat this boogey flavored bean."

"Only if you beat me in exploding snap!" Sirius challenged, delighting in the way James' eyes lit up at the suggestion.

"Can I play, too?" asked a quiet voice. Sirius and James looked at the other boy, then to each other. James shrugged and Sirius split the deck of cards further. The girl simply tutted, not even bothering to look up from the heavy volume in her lap. Sirius remembers the resounding _crack_ as she finally broke the book's tightly bounded spine.

But he also remembers the flash of the first explosion reflected in his new friend's glasses and the ringing in his own ears that began to hum out the last promise his father would make to him, a prophecy for the coming age.

_And when the times comes, the blood traitors will die, and then the mudbloods, and the half-breeds and then, Sirius Black, you will know what blood really means. _

II.

Blood meant nothing to Sirius by the next night. He opened the howlers in the bathroom, the voices melting beneath the cold shower water and his own echoing laughter. James had promised to take him home for Christmas--gold, crimson and lion roaring.

III.

Before they left for the holidays, Andromeda caught him one last time, and Sirius finally noticed the Hufflepuff boy shuffling his feet behind her. The cousins smiled at one another, and Andromeda's wink sealed their secrets and their fates.

IV.

Sirius remembers disliking Lily Evans.

After all, what girl would insane enough not to acknowledge a boy who worshipped the ground she walked on, who sang her praises like a man recommending her to heaven?

He remembers the sound that Bellatrix's unconscious body made in the stone hallway when Lily finally fought back--and how after she looked at him like she was trying to solve his mystery.

"What are you doing here?" She said, but Sirius knew what she was really asking. She was asking, _how did you survive this?_ She was asking_, Why are you not like them_? And when he saw her gaze of respect, he met it in return.

And when Lily Evans married his best friend, Sirius remembers learning to love her and the way her green eyes lit up to meet James' and the promises that passed between them.

_Blood means nothing_, he thought then, watching them dance_, I have made the right choice_.

V.

Harry is the first and only baby Sirius will hold.

James was busy attending to a glowing Lily, having placed Harry in his best friend's arms without a second thought.

Sirius had wanted to find the words to tell them how beautiful, how perfect Harry really was, but he was too entranced. Harry looked at him like he already knew him--like he already loved him, and Sirius loved him for it in return.

Harry would get the childhood he deserved. One that was filled with light instead of dark, punishing corners. One without furious reprimands and tirades against those of lesser blood.

What did it matter if he and Harry did not share the same blood? He remembers reminding himself that he needed not a single drop to be a godfather.

VI.

Sirius wonders how he will remember this.

The gut feeling when Peter had not been in his hiding place? The cloud of smoke that broke away in the sky to reveal a fierce outline of green and unyielding horror? The way the once beautiful cottage had seemingly disintegrated?

This is what Sirius will try to forget:

Stumbling blindly through collapsed boards, and waving through unsettled dust, screaming--_screaming_--for James until...

Until...

There is not a single part of Sirius that does not ache or burn or twist or scream as he collapses next to the still form of his friend. His wand was clutched fiercely in his hand as Sirius knew it would be, his glasses bent and cracked, and eyes wide open to the nursery to--

_Harry_.

Sirius claws his way to the top of the wreckage, leaving behind a trail of hair and ripped robe. They had gotten away, Harry and Lily, they had gotten away and James had not died in vain. He would take care of them, his family.

_No_, he thinks, choking, _no, no, no_!

He thinks, _This is my fault_, and _Why did you have to take them? My friends, my family--everything_!

But then there was Harry, bright green eyes blinking at him across the distance of the broken room, over the body of his mother--_Oh, God, Lily!_--and straight through him.

The crib had collapsed and overturned on top of him, and Sirius wonders if this is the shape of things to come.

"_Harry_," he cries--cries truly, really, with heavy wet sobs and grateful relief. But when his tears appear, so do Harry's, and the little boy seems to wake up to the world screaming.

Sirius' hands stray over Lily's shoulder as he stumbles in the dark toward her precious son.

None of this is real, not Harry in hysterics pressed tightly to his constricted chest. Not levitating Lily down next to James, not arranging them together--eyes closed, tears on their cheeks not yet dry. Maybe they are his, maybe they are Harry's.

It is real when Hagrid is waiting outside with so much horror on his face that Sirius relives his path. And when Sirius is finally forced to relinquish his godson, the boy began to weep once again.

"No," Sirius swears, not expecting either of them to understand. "Blood will not matter."

VII.

He gives Hagrid his flying motorcycle and Harry a promise. They drive up, away, until he is alone entirely. But not forever.

Aloud he whispers his own prophecy, to Harry, to James, to Lily, to the moon, and the rotting bodies of his parents in their deserving graves.

"The time will come when the real traitors will pay," he says, "And every ounce of my strength and life will see it through. And when I come back, you will know what blood really means."


End file.
